


Street Dreams

by Acai



Series: Tumblr Drabbles [2]
Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: Cuddling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Plans For The Future, Supportive Relationships, These Sappy Boys Just Love Each Other, deep talks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-29
Updated: 2017-12-29
Packaged: 2019-02-23 11:21:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13189014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Acai/pseuds/Acai
Summary: prompt: “i cant sleep, can i stay here?” with richjake // written for the fall prompts meme on tumblr





	Street Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> oooooooof i love them,,,and they love each other,,,,,
> 
> written for the tumblr fall prompts meme for anonymous

Jake was having a dream. 

Whether it was a good dream or a bad dream, he hadn’t quite decided yet. But it was a dream. A soft one, at that. The kind where everything’s edges blurred and the world had a tint of yellow glow coating it. He knew he was dreaming from the moment that he turned away from the kitchen table. One minute the front door was opening and the seats at the table were full and his mom brought home lasagna, and the next he was neck-deep in the fridge and thinking,  _this is a dream._

He’d dreamed it enough times to know that. It was never the same, but he was sure this time. Sometimes he was in the car with them, asking, “when did you get here?” They’d laugh and promise him that they never left, and the dreams would be warm. 

Other times he’d be out with his friends and a woman would stop him, gasping and turning to her husband to tell him that they’d found their son. In those dreams, everything was just one big mix-up. His real parents were a sweet, young couple who’d been unfortunate enough to have their son taken from them—and his fake parents, the ones who’d left him, were nothing to him; petty thieves getting tired of one crime after the next. Jake would go home with his real parents and they’d have dinner together. His mom played the piano and his dad played sports, and a gushing, gushing happiness would bubble up inside of him until he cried with joy. 

When he woke up, he was always crying from another emotion entirely. 

This time, though, Jake knew that he was having a dream. Still, he didn’t stop himself from enjoying it. From eating dinner with his mom and his dad while they talked about life and work the way that they did when Jake was little. 

He’s eating mashed potatoes when his mom asks him, “why are you crying?”and although Jake doesn’t know the answer, he cries harder, because he knows for sure it’s a dream now. 

The dream devolves from there. There’s a tapping noise on the window where the wind is banging and banging on the glass, and his dad is saying his name again and again, and Jake keeps asking, what? what? without any response.  
He’s still crying when he jolts awake. It makes him mad; he’s angry that he’s crying at all over them and even angrier that he keeps doing it. 

The anger boils over when he realizes that the knocking noise has followed him to the waking world, peppering his ears every now and then. 

Jake realizes that it’s the door all at once. He swipes away the wetness on his cheeks with a scoff, throwing his blankets off and glancing in the mirror once on his way to the door.

It’ll do. 

It’s Rich at the door, looking mildly disgruntled and altogether much-too-tired.   
“I’ve been knocking for, like, ten minutes,” he says. 

“It’s three in the morning.” 

They stand there in silence for a stretch of moments. Jake assumes it’s because neither of them has anything to say, but he assumes Rich does, because he’s the one standing on Jake’s doorstep at 3AM. 

“I can’t sleep,” Rich admits finally. “Can I stay here?” 

There’s more to it than that, Jake’s sure. Rich slept all the time—mostly in math classes, but sometimes he’d dabble in the art of taking naps during history or English, too. Rich slept so much that it was almost concerning, but he always told them he just really liked taking naps. 

Not to mention, that wasn’t much of a reason to walk all the way to Jake’s house this late (early?) in the day. And Jake was assuming that he’d walked, because there wasn’t any car that he could see. 

He doesn’t push. 

“Do you wanna come in?” He says instead. Rich doesn’t say anything, but he nods and wraps his sweater a little tighter around himself when he steps in. He’s tired. Jake can practically feel it radiating off of his boyfriend. He knows how it feels; Jake’s tired, too. 

He’s mostly tired in a way that can’t be blamed on the hour, but can instead be blamed on karma and pills and things that are entirely out of his control.   
He knows it’s the same way for Rich.

Rich tosses himself down onto the nearest couch, tucking his legs to his stomach and making grabby motions with his hands. Jake offers up a smile and fills the empty space nearby. 

“Can’t sleep?” He asks. 

Rich shrugs. “I’m not tired. I slept a lot today.” 

“You sleep a lot every day.” Jake tired not to make it sound like an accusation.   
“I’m tired.” Rich sounded tired. Heavy-tired. 

Jake thinks about what people would do in a show right now, and there’s only one thing that he can come up with. “Do you want some tea?” 

At the very least, Rich laughs. “Tea?” 

“It’s too late at night for coffee,” Jake tries to explain, but he can already feel himself starting to fluster and hopes that his face isn’t getting red. “And people always drink tea before bed in reality shows, so…” 

“Do you own tea?” 

Jake has to concede to this. “Probably not. But I’ve got eggnog.” 

“You don’t even like eggnog,” Rich replies, still giggling. He’s probably laughing because he’s just been offered eggnog as a substitute for herbal tea. Or maybe he’s laughing because he knows that the eggnog is just for him, even though the year is just chipping into November and it’s far too early to be buying eggnog. 

Jake shrugs, and on an impulse he reaches out to grab one of Rich’s hands.   
“What’d your dad do?” 

“Why’re you crying?” Rich shoots back, not missing a single beat. They settle back into silence, but it’s on edge this time, and Jake can feel the nerves radiating off of Rich and knows that an attempt at diffusion is coming. Sure enough, a meek, “eggnog, please,” comes from Jake’s right. 

Jake obliges. A piece of him feels bad; he knew better than to rub salt into a cut that was still oozing. The anger from before is bubbling up again, though, at the thought of people making Rich sad, and he has to take a second to cool off before walking back into the living room and setting a mug on the coffee table.   
“Do you want to try and sleep, dude?” 

Rich shrugged. Jake shrugged back, even though he knew that Rich couldn’t see him. The silence lapses for ten minutes, and then twenty. By the time that Rich has finished his eggnog, Jake’s worked up the nerve to speak.   
“When I was little, I wanted to live in a blue house,” he starts, and he doesn’t look to his right even though he can feel Rich’s gaze swivel to the left. “But I wanted to paint it blue myself. Really soft blue, you know? Baby blue. And the inside would be all white.” 

“The carpets would be so messy, man.” 

“Nah, I’d be the kind of guy who’s all,  _no drinks in the living room_ , and forces his kids to keep all their cups in the kitchen to protect the carpet.” 

“You want kids?” Rich asks, cautious. 

Jake pauses for a second, wondering how loaded the question is and if he should tread lightly. “I guess?” He settles on. “Someday, you know?” He carries on before any silence can butt into their time together more than it already has. “I want all kinds of pictures on the walls, but they aren’t going to be framed. They’re gonna be shitty polaroids that we’ll tape up of all of our friends.” 

“Who’s gonna take the photos, then?” 

“Jeremy’s dad,” Jake replied, confidently enough that Rich snorted into his empty mug. 

Rich leans into Jake’s side, slotting himself into place and resting his head on Jake’s arm, just below the shoulder. “I want to paint my room yellow eventually,” he says. “I want an old house; you know, like, with short ceilings?” 

“So that you can feel tall?” Jake asks, and he’s the one laughing now.

“So that I can feel tall,” Rich agrees, and he’s murmuring now. He’s tired. 

Jake quiets down, and he knows that they’re both going to fall asleep here with cricks in their necks tomorrow, but he doesn’t really mind. 

He hears Rich say, “I want you there too, obviously. Like, duh, what’s the point of having a cool house if my favorite person isn’t there?” 

“I want you there, too,” Jake agrees, and the only thing he hears after that is Rich snoring.  

He falls asleep, and Jake dreams about dinner again. 

Except this time, he’s walking into a baby blue house and into a kitchen. There’s a living room by the kitchen, and the floors are white carpeting to match a gray-painted wall. In the kitchen, the walls are Neapolitan yellow. 

**Author's Note:**

> aobajosighs.tumblr.com // send me a prompt or talk to me about a fic ! 
> 
> leave a comment telling me what you thought, and thank you for reading!


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